EU Report Slams U.S. Web Gambling Stance
The European Union said Thursday that the United States is breaking the rules of the World Trade Organization and creating a barrier to trade in its enforcement of laws pertaining to Internet gambling. The Obama administration should consider the issue and the possibility of negotiating a solution, the EU wrote in a draft report. The paper, which is currently being sent to EU member states for comments on the findings, holds that European online gambling companies are still being subject to legal proceedings by U.S. authorities based on their business activities before the U.S. changed its gambling law in 2006.
The EU also said that while U.S. companies may have online gambling operations for horse racing sites in the U.S., EU companies are not permitted to do so. The EU holds that the problem stems for EU companies understanding that it was legal to supply Internet gambling services in the U.S. prior to 2006. U.S. government agencies, including the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Justice Department, are studying the report and will discuss it with the European Commission, a USTR spokeswoman said.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank plans to reintroduce legislation to effectively unhinge the Internet gambling ban, which passed as part of a larger port security bill in 2006 but was not implemented until recently. A bill introduced by Frank last Congress would have created an exemption to the gambling ban for properly licensed operators and set up a regulatory and enforcement framework for those online firms to accept bets and wagers. It would also have ensured protections aimed at underage users, compulsive gamblers, and potential victims of money laundering and fraud. Read more in CongressDaily here (subscription required). -- Winter Casey
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